Blogs from North Central Coast, Vietnam, Asia - page 96

Now here I am in Hué! Flying here was definitely the right decision (yes Boris, you where right!)- sparing me more than one day in a bus. One thing I didn’t appreciate though was the fact that I had about 4 babies sitting in my immediate vicinity- nothing’s wrong with babies, don’t get me wrong please! And I usually don’t have a problem when a baby cries- but when 4 (in one word: FOUR!!!) babies raise their high pitched voices to max noise level- that’s the point where I start to get a little unnerved. But apart from that everything went good on the flight- just one minor incident happened on our final approach into Hué. When all of a sudden I heard a weird and strange, yet familiar sound- the lady sitting behind me had ... read more

Hello! Well we're now in Vietnam and it's our new favourite place already! Don't get me wrong, it's true you do get hassled morning, noon and night from people trying to sell you stuff, but it hasn't put us off at all. (We are just getting better at saying NO, NO, NOOOO!!!!!! - honestly though, we'd love to help them out and buy something but we just don't have the money, even if they do bring their children do look at us with puppy-dog eyes.) It's hard to describe what Vietnam is like, but we'll give it ago. In some ways it's exactly like you imagine it. Beautiful girls riding around on bicycles in long-flowing silks and pointed straw hats. Cyclo (bicycle taxi) drivers plying for trade with... 'where you go?' 'Where you from' 'Only two ... read more

Well on our travels we have utilized many forms of transport; speed boat, slow boat, sampan, bamboo raft, kayak, Chinese junk, elephant, night train, bus, minibus, car, tuk-tuks of all shapes & sizes, moto (motor bike or xe-om), the tray of utes, bicycle shanks pony and the inner tubes of tires. In the process we have got to experience the different driving styles in the different countries. Of all the places we’ve visited to date, none compare to the madness of traffic in Vietnam. Negotiating this traffic is so integral to our tour that I can’t really continue without it. We’ve all made or heard the comments about Asian drivers back home - how they swerve into your lane without looking, stop in the middle of the road, bumper park etc etc - but have you ... read more

Hey sorry it's been a while since my last post. We took a night train the night before last 12 or 13 hours to Hue. Train travel is the way to go. We had a car with sleeper compartmets in it...basically like 6 coffins crammed into a room. But I slept through most of the journey so it's like time travel....much better than trying to sleep in a seat. And it's fairly cheap too. This afternoon we've gotta get going because the girls' visas expire soon and we wanted to check out Hoi An. So we got about a 4 hour bus ride ahead of us today. It's funny the way the travelling community is so tight. I keep running into the same people all the time and I've only been here like a week. Travellers ... read more

As my last entry was not very informative I will retrack. After our 12 hr bus journey which was awful but met great people we went on the DMZ tour. DMZ being demilitarised zone near Hue. This was the North-South Vietnam border. We had an amuzing guide who took us to different sites expaining the history of Vietnam and their wars ( which was actually interesting). Our guide made jokes like 'watch out for the land mines!!! ...oh sorry its a cow pat!' . After nearly dying of heart failure we realised it was not going to be like a usual tour. At the end of the trip we went to the Vinh Moc tunnels. The locals built these tunnels to avoid American bombings. At some places only 1.5m high ( so even I was too ... read more